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start a new novel Votes: 11 5.4%
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continue existing novel Votes: 192 94.6%
We finished up breakfast while Cal gloated over the fate of his arch-enemy sister. Amazing me with how bad their relationship was... to think that he would actually be glad about it.
Walking down the hallway to Cal's room, he patted me on the back excitedly. Belle trailing just behind, in a good mood after such a grand breakfast, her ribboned tail swishing happily. The only remaining girl after dropping off Tammy, and sending Marcella for guidance.
"To think I'd live to see the day! You saw Marcella's face right?" He was beaming.
Did this really make him that happy?
"Introducing you to Marcella was the best decision I've ever made."
What an exaggeration, rolling my eyes.
"I actually had something I wanted to talk with you about, Cal."
"I'm all ears. I owe you one for this"
"Well... technically I still owe you one. I did make a promise when you put Belle up in your store."
"You were serious back then?" He paused, contemplating.
"Anyways. I wanted to ask you, did you ever make anything for Marcella for enhancing magical talent?"
"You knew? I didn't think Marcella would tell you..." He looked surprised.
"Well, she didn't but it's not exactly hard to guess. You're an alchemist, she's a mage. If you were at all capable of making those things for your family, you would be... so how do you make them? Can I have them?"
"Hmm... it might be a tough call to show you how to make them. But we probably could give a few to you. These normally go to Marcella, but since you're her husband what's her's is your's. Am I right?" Elbowing me in the ribs.
Cal wasn't kidding earlier, he really does hate Marcella doesn't he?
"Well that's fine with me. Just let me see them."
When we got to his room, he started digging through the closet. Coming up with a locked chest which he fiddled with to open, unveiling a number of vials of various colors.
"Careful with these, they're all extremely expensive."
I picked up the first bottle.
Elixir of Sages: Enhances Intelligence
"You had some grass on the table that looks a lot like this..."
He narrowed his eyes at me.
"How would you know that just from looking?"
"I'm pretty perceptive about these things. Is this okay to drink?" Emulating a drinking motion with the corked contents.
"Go for it... it may have some mild side effects. Some people complain about strange sensations." He said to me.
I downed it in one go. Faintly jelly-like texture, just as all potions made from a slime-base tasted, but the flavor was bitter and tasted like lawn clippings. I supposed it made a certain sense... even magical grass is probably still going to taste like grass.
My head felt weird suddenly. A slight pressure building in my ears, feeling like my mind was expanding out of my head. It wasn't particularly unpleasant, rather it felt like enlightenment. Like I had been stuck in a mental fog my entire life, and only now was I aware of it. The fog wasn't lifted, but now I knew it existed. Before long the sensation faded, leaving me just as I had been.
"Strange indeed."
Picking up another vial.
"Woah, slow down there. Better to not drink so many so fast. I heard it's pretty hard on your body." He cautioned me.
Somehow with fourty-five constitution, I think I should be fine. If it was bad enough to hurt me, normal mages would be dropping like flies.
Still, I put down the second elixir of sages and picked up another.
An unnamed brew: increases charisma, mild necrotoxic poison.
"Don't drink that one, that's a failed recipe. I tried using ambrosia moss for that, much cheaper material that I suspected had the effects I wanted... but ultimately I could never get rid of the poison aspect."
"So you could mass produce these?" I asked him, more than curiously.
"Like I said, there's no point. Even if I could."
I uncorked the potion smelling it, walking out in into the main part of his room, over to a wall with large mirror hung up. Eyeing my free attribute points so that I could use them at any point if needed.
Spilling a drop onto my tongue, which greatly alarmed Cal, who tried to grab the vial from with no success as I kept him at bay with one arm. I was twice as powerful as a grown man, arguably in better form than even the best trained knights, while Cal was a playboy bookworm.
I felt a tingling sensation on my tongue, but within seconds it was gone. No noticeable effects aside from that.
Seeing it seemed to be alright, I downed the whole vial. Relying on my enhanced constitution to keep me safe.
My whole mouth and throat tingled, feeling a slight burning sensation all the way down. If someone drank this they'd definitely die. I'm pretty sure this was almost like drinking acid.
I felt myself grow more confident, feeling larger, but not in the physical sense. So this is what it felt like to grow your mana capacity? Strange indeed. Slightly disappointed that neither of the potions lead to an increase in a point, but not surprised. The feeling I got from both was not particularly that of a profound change. I'd need to drink a lot of these to make any difference. It was actually somewhat reassuring to me in a way, at least this way I knew there weren't thousands of mages out there running around with tremendously attributes attained from a life of endless potion-drinking.
"Keaton... how on earth are you okay? That's poison you just drank... right?" He was trying to take a drop to try for himself before I stopped him.
"Let's just say I'm an exception. So, can you make more?"
Cal looking at me with hesitation, unsure if he should comply.
I have to ask why, your sitting on 4+ stars and have over 1k readers, thats way above average for stories on sh/
Ikr the story is good so fae
I don't really want people to take this as a sign that I'm quitting the novel. I actually do like writing, but recently I wasn't sure if it was actually being well received. I've gotten a lot of 1 stars recently, more happening in the last 2 days than in all the history of the novel (probably from a specific chapter), but mainly it's because I keep getting messages that don't really inspire confidence. I generally don't moderate the comments here, but I recently got one that was borderline death-threaty, which makes that the first one I've ever removed.
Now I'm not a very sensitive person, so don't get me wrong, but getting negativity like that is confusing as an author because I'm not actually sure if people are liking the story or not. And if a clear majority of my readers wanted me to switch to something new then I probably would.
I suppose this is me doing a poll about general satisfaction with the state of the novel, and I'm actually rather shocked with how positive it is turning out because I was starting to have some doubts.
@Kaguro I find this novel interesting and really like the approach taken with it. What has put me off a bit is MCs bevahior; cruel for no apparent reason. If I can be shown some reasoning for it I can immerse myself into the character with ease and observe the world from his perspective and morals, if not I feel dissident from the story and view it from my perspective and morals.
Hope that helps. I'll continue reading and see where you are going with the story.
I agree with the recent chapter negativity portion of this statement. mostly because i agree with what a lot of people said about the way he handled it but its whatever because at the end of the day people can just choose to ignore those chapters(or sections of said chapters) but they didn't so they don't really have a right to complain about the contents.You should write what you wanna write (I mean it has been working so far for the what? past 52 + this chapter/s)
I guess his body is ready for alchemy experiments of any form (Keaton is a little(by a little I mean a lot) stupid but that's why we love him(?))
(Don't get me wrong we love you too Author)
@SaintSin For sure, and I will be implementing some change. I will try to do better at justifying his actions consistent with the character's unique logic. I don't want him to become entirely unsympathetic to the audience, but at the same time he's not supposed to be super likable either.
@Kaguro I'm just here for the smut and harem.
But in all honesty, as a writer myself, I found out that what I want to read and what I want to write are two very different things. I say you should just keep writing what you like and don't force yourself if you can't as it can really take a toll to your mental health.
@Kaguro I have been pretty vocal about what happened mostly because I work with people that similar things have happened to. But never let it be thought that it is saying anything about your ability. You write very well and have a lot of talent. I have been really impressed with your offering for the most part. Always remember its your story it is your gift to us the reader we can choose not to accept said gift but that is not one you at all.
@Fafulin Thanks for the kind words. For clarification I'm not trying to discourage criticism since I do want people to be able to share their honest opinions.
@Kaguro it just spammers and trolls that just want to see the world burn
@Shadowstriker I dont think its that but can say they are wrong. Its the problem when you have a quality story people become invested and interested in the characters to a decent extent and he just had one of his characters break his love interest so someone took it way too seriously probably.
Or you might be right they just trolling.
@Kaguro In another thing I think the best thing for Marcella is to die. Die in such a way that not even Keaton can not be absolved. Make her do something so bad and die that the kingdom comes down on her entire family and goes after Keaton and Keaton has to run away. It really is the most likely and realistic outcome for her it locks in Keaton as evil (as if that was not apparent) and removes her from the board. Because as it stands now she has no time to heal so her hate and anger will just go to being self destructive. There is a story called a Fathers Wrath where in the first part there was a girl like Marcella that was pretty much a rape doll, she ended up getting 99% of the MC's party killed plus herself just cause pain and hate was all she got left. All she knew was betrayal so all she did was betray. Sadly it takes a lot of therapy and time to get past stuff and they never truly do and Marcella got neither.
Another option is she Kills herself. Get father in some super twisted way (like mothers who give help people rape their children to fix their homosexuality) to see what he did to his kid and causes a downward spiral for his land and people due to his depression and failure as a parent. Keaton grows maybe comes to some self actualization that his actions has consequences as the lives of everyone around him starts to go tits up.
@Kaguro dude you are doing pretty well so far. The only thing and only thing I see missing is a bit more character depth and decision reasoning. Other than that it is great. Any complaints are from people who don't read/believe tags
And feel that all stories must be 21st century earth based morals and reality. Its a fantasy story for crying out loud not real life. If it was based on rl then it would be based on 3rd world in current times as some of the more game of thones aspects still go on there quite heavily unfortunately.
@pincho lol we both joined the bandwagon months after it happened XD the author still is writing so I think we are good but just to be clear at this point of the novel I agree with you. I'm gonna see how things develops in the next chapters, I'm currently speedrunning this novel XD